All Things Considered BBC Radio Wales

To judge from the number of recordings (they run into the thousands) Amazing Grace is one of the world's most popular hymns. And yet this global 'hit' was many years in the making. Penned by a former slave trader turned abolitionist, John Newton, it was in America that it would be popularised, largely through the agency of a Welshman who wedded it to the tune with which we are familiar nowadays.
Ironically, the song was most enthusiastically adopted by African Americans. And it would be two centuries before a hymn written for a rural parish in Buckinghamshire would return to Britain as a popular song, conquering the charts with recordings such as Judy Collins' version in 1970, and an unlikely chart-topper in 1972 with The Pipes And Drums And The Military Band Of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.
Rosa Hunt explores the various twists and turns, and the ironies in this story of John Newton's most famous hymn, which is now some 250 years old. Acclaimed baritone and composer Roderick Williams talks about his collaboration with poet Rommi Smith in writing a song-cycle expressing some of our contemporary unease with a hymn which is both loved and despised, depending on perspective. Historian James Walvin is the author of a new book on Amazing Grace, and he provides the historical context to Newton's life, whilst Welsh historian Marian Gwyn gives her insight into the nature of the Atlantic slave trade at the time of John Newton. One landmark recording of the song was made by Paul Robeson, and Beverley Humphreys comments on both that recording and on Newton's words.
This programme was first broadcast in November 2023.
Producer: Geoff Ballinger
https://www.johnnewton.org/Groups/222562/The_John_Newton/new_menus/Amazing_Grace/Amazing_Grace.aspx
https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/john-newton-1725-1807/

On Sunday 26th May Llandaff Cathedral will host a service to remember people in the LGBTQ+ community who have suffered exclusion from Christian communities because of their sexuality or gender identity. The service is organised LGBTQ+ Christian Charity OneBodyOneFaith. In this week's 'All Things Considered' Delyth Liddell speaks to the charity's co-chair, Father Jarel Robinson-Brown.
Jarel Robinson-Brown is vicar of St German's Church, Adamsdown, Cardiff but he hails from London. He was raised in West London by Jamaican grandparents and studied in Cambridge to become a Methodist minister, serving as an Ordinand at Clare College. In 2021 he left the Methodist church and began the journey to be ordained as an Anglican Priest. Jarel says himself he’s a person who crosses many boundaries, calling himself “a Black, Queer British Christian minister of Jamaican and Cuban heritage.” His writing explores racism and homophobia in the church and how to better address these issues. He is the Martin Luther King Fellow at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, and his research interests are early Christian history, Patristics and Egyptian Late Antiquity.

Religious courts or councils have long existed in England and Wales, offering mediation or arbitration on a range of issues for the Jewish, Muslim and even Christian communities. With the recent establishment of the Sikh Council, Azim Ahmed discusses the nature of these institutions with a panel of guests. What are they, what do they do, and how effective are they?
Azim is joined by Dr Samia Bano, Reader in Law at SOAS, University of London; Rabbi Jonathan Romain, Convenor of the Reform Beit Din, and Professor Russell Sandberg.

“Run the straight race”
The line from a well-know hymn gives a clue to this week’s edition presented by Rosa Hunt. Throughout May the BBC is holding its annual Mental Health and Wellbeing Season which coincides with a week of awareness run by the Mental Health Foundation. This year the foundation is focussing on "moving more for our mental health”. During the programme we include an exploration of physical activity as far as faith is concerned.
In some faiths, worship is very much a sedentary activity and perhaps the only physical element is standing to sing hymns and songs and even then, that’s for those able to do so. Many find wellbeing in anything from private prayer and meditation to physical workouts and walks. We visit Glenwood Community Church and Wellbeing Space in Cardiff, where wellbeing and mental health are taken very seriously with a range of activities on offer to the locality including physical ones. It’s also a place where counselling is offered by professional counsellors.
We also speak to Jamilla Hekmoun, Chair of the Muslim Mental Health Alliance and a Research Fellow on the Faith and Mental Health Project run by the Woolfe Institute. On Friday 10th May the Institute is holding a workshop at Cardiff University “focussed on improving mental health provision for Muslim communities”.
As part of the BBC’s Mental Health and Wellbeing season, BBC Radio Wales will be sharing stories and tips this month on how to support your mental health and wellbeing.
LINKS
bbc.co.uk/mentalwellbeing
mentalhealth.org.uk
www.glenwoodchurch.org
https://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/mental-health-project

Roy Jenkins talks to former nun Catherine Coldstream, who has recently published a fascinating, challenging and highly praised memoir of her former life in a Carmelite monastery.
Following the death of her father, Catherine Coldstream abandoned her musician's life in Paris and sought spiritual solace in a monastery, and found what she thought was a vocation for life as a Carmelite nun. She was only in her mid-20s Yet on a rainy night 12 years later she would try to escape from the community which had once seemed idyllic. By that time it was riven between two factions, one for maintaining the old traditions at all costs, and the other for embracing the Catholic church’s modernising concern for individual welfare.
In recent years Catherine has been a teacher of religion and ethics, and in this conversation she reflects on both the good and the bad parts of her experience in the monastery to which she gives the fictional name of 'Akenside'.